Title: Building Steam
Author: Aithilin
Rating: PG
Genre: Steampunk AU, pre-slash
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: None
Warnings: non-graphic violence, utter AU
Word Count: approx. 1010
Summary: Dean, captain of the Airship Impala, captures Castiel of the Angels.
Author's Notes: One-off snippet from a larger piece. Title taken from the Abney Park song of the same name.
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He had been on nicer ships. Ships that were built for luxury, military, or were built purely for speed. He'd been on boats, airships, and some of the best ever created to float or fly. So the first impression of the creaking wreck that was the Impala was that it was utter crap.
That opinion hadn't actually been dislodged from his mind until well after his capture and subsequent turn-coating. It wasn't until the first attack he really witnessed from the vantage point of one of the attackers that he understood just how the crew worked. From below deck, watching the attack through the wider windows of the captain's cabin, Cas could see the tactics that took down the ship he had been on. And, with this vantage, Sam standing next to him and eyeing the set up with a cold, calculating look of the crew's strategist, Cas realized that his ship hadn't stood a chance.
For a ship the size of the Impala, he was amazed that no one noticed it on the horizon before the attack. It was one thing he remembered about the attack that resulted in his capture. No one saw it coming.
He knew what it would look like from the other side. A small, narrow-decked transport or smuggling vessel pulling up alongside a larger ship. It would catch the blind side, have canons drawn (but aimed high enough to not damage the cargo holds), and fire a Gatling gun first into what crew was on deck. The canons fired grapeshot; he remembered how effective it was against the Angels in his garrison. By the time the ships were leashed together, and Dean leading the crew into boarding, the target would be a wreck.
It took twenty minutes to neutralize his garrison. Forty more to loot. Ten to wrap the dead in the captured ship's sail and dump them into the expanse of sea miles below. And, another four minutes to release the tethers and let the wreck drop.
Regardless of which way he watched it, Cas had to admire the efficiency.
"Would you fight?"
"What?"
"If we gave you your wings back and sent you out with the crew," Sam wasn't even looking at him; "would you follow Dean's orders and kill other Angels?"
Cas took a long moment to consider it. From their vantage point, they could see the captured ship's crew hacking uselessly away at the three superfluous tethers that Dean used as a distraction while the important ones cracked through into the hold and nearly rolled the vessel. It was far more terrifying to be thrown off balance in the air than it was at sea. He could see the points where Dean would send his crew to board.
"He's the captain, isn't he?"
Sam seemed to relax at that, figuring that was the answer he needed. "He likes to think so."
"The rest of the crew, too."
"That's because they aren't perpetually on his good side."
"You are, I suppose. As his brother."
"He likes you."
It was chaos outside. One of the sails tore loose and tangled in the far side propeller, causing the vessel to roll further. The roll was, as in the capture of his garrison's ship, stopped midway by the tethers acting like a leash. It gave enough leverage to wheel the ship in by the expendable crew while the fighters secured themselves in their own tethers (he had seen Dean test those each day, strapping whomever annoyed him the most and tossing them off ship).
Cas could remember how it sounded and looked from the other end, as everyone scrambled to stations before they realized that the whole ship was lurching away from their feet. The mechanized wings hadn't saved half of his brethren.
"He hasn't said anything." Cas frowned, watching the boarding. "You need to run the warning up."
"For what?"
"There's a Gatling gun mounted on the side there."
He knew that Sam wouldn't see it. The gun was covered with a bulge of wood. A trap he knew was built into every ATC ship as a final effort to take out any enemy boarders. A smuggling vessel wasn't supposed to have one like that.
"I don't see it."
"Trust me. I'll show it to you on the blueprints you have later. But right now, they have aim on half the crew."
A moment's hesitation and Sam pressed the button that sent a hundred little gears turning out of sight. Whatever the warning was (a flag, he thought), it came in time enough for Dean to pull his crew out of harm's way as wood and metal where they had been standing exploded. The firing stopped a moment later when someone on the Impala saw the source and obliterated it with grapeshot (the gun was still mostly intact, but the supports securing it to the ship weren't-- it fell uselessly to the water below).
There were no other threats that Cas could see on the exterior of the ship, and the crew had managed to fight its way into the cabin. It was a firm foothold, and the fight was finished from any tactical viewpoint. The most danger the captain and crew of the Impala was in involved any stragglers who hadn't taken any of the fighting positions on the deck.
It was enough for Cas to move away from the windows and start making coffee (Sam complained every morning that Dean refused to share the good stuff).
"What are you doing?" It took a lot to take Sam's attention away from the scene outside. But Cas fiddling with a kettle seemed to be enough.
"It's cold out there. I don't want to listen to Dean complain that he has to make his coffee himself."
It took Sam a moment for that to actually sink in-- though he thought he might be overanalyzing it, and Cas really did just want to avoid listening to Dean whine about "having to do everything himself."
"Suck up."
"Bite me."